This is an ancient first-person RPG that predates even Betrayal at Krondor by a year. Utterly obnoxious to play in every way by modern standards. Also by ~1996 standards (see: Strife). Honestly, even just the simple fact that S doesn't make you reverse is enough to drive me insane (you have to either turn around or click using the right function). Ancient video games are a lot harder to get into than ancient movies. Watching Nosferatu or Battleship Potemkin doesn't take much effort, and they're still enjoyable. Ancient video games like this require a ton of effort and unless you're really really really into this i wouldn't recommend it.
**Intro** Toonstruck is a point & click adventure game starring Christopher Loyd back when he was pretty big (BTTF 1-3, Addams Family 1-2). You're a cartoonist who ends up in a mildly amusing cartoon world that follows "cartoon rules". You get stars by having someone else hit them, you motivate an elephant to run by scaring them with a mouse, that kind of thing. **The Good** The game was apparently a huge flop, despite all the money poored in. It looks nice, the occasional cartoons are decent and it also features voice acting by Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson) and Tim Curry (who coincidentally would later star in Addams Family 3). There's also a handful of funny jokes, like your character asking an anthropomorphic cow if they're not supposed to be on all fours. **The Bad** Toonstruck suffers from the usual p&c adventure game flaws. No map to quickly move between areas and see where you can do something, no hint button, no journal/quest list and lots of annoying slow text & unskippable bits. Also, nothing about the setting, story and characters is particularly interesting. There's a footman who is an actual foot, that's about it. It's also fairly short because they decided to cut the planned game in half to make a sequel. **Conclusion** I wouldn't recommend it unless you're really into adventures about cartoon stuff.
I loved EU3 a little bit more than is healthy so now, a decade later, i decided to give its predecessor a shot. And it was so rough i honestly just gave up after a few minutes. The controls are all wrong. Not zooming with the mouse wheel is bad enough, but Space not pausing the game is terrible. Instead you have to use the tiny Pause button somewhere on the top right of your keyboard. It's EU, you constantly want to pause and unpause. Such a bizarre choice. The game is also extremely limited when it comes to starting nation/time. There are 8 scenarios with 1-8 countries each. There's maybe 30 countries in total. There is no option to just pick any country and any starting date like in EU3. It does run in Windows 10, but it crashes every time i exit. Overall, you're better off getting a newer version of EU.
You get an x amount of points to select an army, unlocking new units and slots as you progress through the campaign. You deploy this army on a hexgrid map then find the enemy and attack it - keeping an eye out for bonus objectives. Units gain XP and level up, though i'm not sure what that does. There's also an option to buy "strategies" which seem to be one-off spells that hurt the enemy (and i'm guessing later on help yours). This is yet another game with lots of big unmarked buttons (seriously, wtf was up with that?), but these make a bit more sense. Gameplay is kinda clunky because you only get one move action instead of a number of steps and weapon range isn't shown when you select a unit (or whatever). Your guys walk towards the enemy and you shoot each other from 0-2 squares away. There doesn't seem to be all that much in the way of tactics. Terrain doesn't seem to have much of an effect for instance (e.g. doesn't block LOS). Since you have to stand next to an enemy to fire on it you can't hide in a forest either, if that has an effect at all. I didn't see any unit abilities either, but they might be there at some point. Mostly this game feels very very dated. Even by 1999 standards the engine was old and the lackluster gameplay doesn't help. I'd rather play HOMM or Age of Wonders or XCom or whatever.
SHR was released in 1995 - the same year as Warcraft 2 and Command & Conquer. Compared to those, it's pretty bad. An interface with vague buttons, ugly graphics that remind me of football manager games of the era and gameplay that consists of rushed clicks instead of careful strategising. I do like everything around it though. The cute menu's. The little story. It's somewhat amusing. I'm also impressed this actually runs, although for some reason there are really long loading times. If it takes 5+ seconds now to load screens, how long did it take back in the days of 386? In any case, don't bother, this doesn't hold up.
In this game you are a little girl with a sword who can briefly shapeshift. At first you can shapeshift into a fairy, which allows you to fly. When you shift you drop your sword and when you shift back you can recall it, hitting enemies, switches, pots, etc. in between. The second form is a spider, which allows you to poke enemies and vines, climb and swing. It's pretty neat, if a bit iffy. I sorta enjoyed it until i got a bit further and didn't really know where they wanted me to go. I died to a horizontal monolith and didn't feel like going on. Oh well.
Seven: The Days Long Gone seemed quite promising at first. Nice graphics. A bunch of different tools. A high-tech quasi-open world. Sneaky sneak action. Sadly, it all falls apart quickly. One of the first problems you notice is the camera. It's stuck in a position that doesn't show all that much - and most notably hides stuff above you. There is a lot of verticality in this game but you can't see if there's something above you that you can climb on. Another problem is the AI. I got caught, killed a guard and simply climbed up twice (i only knew i could because that's how i entered the building). The guard simply left his dead buddy there, didn't sound any alarm, forgot about me and left. I put on the dead guard's uniform and simply walked into the place. At some point i got caught but i simply ran a bit inside the building and they didn't pursue me. Huh? The design of the first mansion is awful. There are glowing lines on the floors and walls, plus other shiny objects. With glittery stuff everywhere they want you to find your way which i only did by accident. Seriously, would you live in a house with light everywhere shining in a flowing pattern constantly? Finally, i made it to the vault - which was practically unguarded. I activated the panel to open the display case and... you guessed it, a hacking mini-game. And it was fucking Frogger. Again. Nope.
You're a generic robot man with a human face and a pancake ass. You walk around this big empty space ship (i think?) and fight generic humanoid horror monsters. You get a healing item, weapon (an axe that is called a "pipe"?), shield and "axions". At some point you'll die because dodge is bound to Left Ctrl and block to Left Alt for some insane reason. Then you get to redo a sizeable part of this because respawn points are rare and enemies respawn too. After dying a couple of times i was done with this crap. Apparently you can use these "axions" to level up but they never explain that. And did i mention that tutorial popups can only be closed with Enter (while you have your hand on WASD and the Mouse)? Plus there's mouse acceleration in addition to the insane sensitivity (had to use G Hub to fix that). Craziest thing of all is that this is a 2020 release. What?!
13 is a fairly standard FPS that only stands out because of its cell-shaded graphics. It's linear, has no non-scoped aiming and overall just isn't that interesting. Walk, shoot, repeat. There's some clunky stealth and item-use but that's it. Average at best by 2003 standards, not worth bothering with in 2021.
**Intro** It's a shoot-em-up. You're a robot and shoot stuff. **The Good** - Solid core mechanics. - Lots of stuff to choose from. - Extensive settings menu. **The Bad** - Mouse sensitivity is insanely high, even at the lowest in-game setting. - The campaign doesn't allow you to pick anything for the first few levels at least. - Everything is so tiny and distant you feel completely detached from it. - Mechs move slow with no sprinting or whatever. - Often hard to tell where you're aiming. - Ammo quickly runs out. - It's kinda boring. **Conclusion** I didn't think a game about being a giant robot that shoots and crushes tanks and people could be this dull.
